Boundaries Between Children's, YA, and Adult Fiction
The distinctions between children's literature, YA literature, and adult literature have historically been flexible and loosely defined. This line is often policed by adults who feel strongly about the border. At the lower end of the YA age spectrum, fiction targeted to readers age 10 to 12 is referred to as middle-grade fiction. Some novels originally marketed to adults have been identified as being of interest and value to adolescents, and vice versa, as in the case of books such as the Harry Potter series of novels.
Read more about this topic: Young-adult Fiction
Famous quotes containing the words boundaries, adult and/or fiction:
“We love to overlook the boundaries which we do not wish to pass.”
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)
“If the Russians have gone too far in subjecting the child and his peer group to conformity to a single set of values imposed by the adult society, perhaps we have reached the point of diminishing returns in allowing excessive autonomy and in failing to utilize the constructive potential of the peer group in developing social responsibility and consideration for others.”
—Urie Bronfenbrenner (b. 1917)
“Americans will listen, but they do not care to read. War and Peace must wait for the leisure of retirement, which never really comes: meanwhile it helps to furnish the living room. Blockbusting fiction is bought as furniture. Unread, it maintains its value. Read, it looks like money wasted. Cunningly, Americans know that books contain a person, and they want the person, not the book.”
—Anthony Burgess (b. 1917)